Welcome back to Sound Off!, a semi-regular column where members of Speculative Chic gather together to chat about the latest BIG THING in entertainment. This time, figure out where you fit and discuss Red Sparrow, which premiered in the United States on Friday, March 2, 2018.
Sound Off! is meant to be a reaction, but not necessarily a review. After all, while we are all individuals, even mutual love of something (or hate) can come from different places: you may find everything from critique to fangirling to maybe even hate-watching.
Now, join J.L. Gribble as she talks about Red Sparrow. [Note: Spoiler-free!]
J.L.: A review of Red Sparrow on Speculative Chic? But that’s not a speculative fiction movie!
I’m sure you’re thinking at this point that the other Speculative Chic contributors have lost all control and now J.L. is watching and reviewing literally everything.
Close, but not quite. There is a method to my madness. When the first trailers for Red Sparrow dropped, a lot of snarkiness occurred in the speculative genre communities about why a movie like this can get made, but our demands for a Black Widow film have yet to be met. Obviously, I had to see the film to check out just how close to a potential Black Widow origin story this movie would be. (Also, Jennifer Lawrence is my husband’s favorite actress, so really, we were seeing this opening night anyway.)
To the people who asked how the movie was over the course of the weekend, my response is short and sweet. Red Sparrow is a typical Cold War spy thriller…except where it is not. I’m not sure whether we quite needed a Cold War film that set up a Russian spy as a sympathetic character in this current political climate. However, the movie was much more about the character of Dominika than about Russia as a political power. Even the romance I was expecting with the American CIA agent was subverted for the purposes of Dominika’s goals. Russia taught her to manipulate people through the Sparrow program, and it backfired on them in a delightfully spectacular manner.
If you kind of squint, it was fairly easy to convert it into a Black Widow origin story. Joel Edgerton’s character even makes a decent Clint Barton, in terms of convincing the CIA to give Dominika a chance to see her plan through. But where a Black Widow movie would have a lot more ass-kicking, Red Sparrow was more about using sex as a weapon.
If you’re looking for a fun, action-packed Cold War spy thriller that brings something new to the genre, watch Atomic Blonde instead. But if you want to see an unexpected story about societal conditioning, personal and bodily autonomy, and all the wacky Russian accents that you can handle, you could probably do worse than Red Sparrow.
I saw a post today about how this movie is more about the male gaze disguised as female empowerment (therefore canceling out the empowerment), which contrasted against Jennifer Lawrence’s stated experience that she found the role very empowering. Thoughts on that? The post I read ventured into spoiler territory, so I understand if you’re reticent to go into TOO much detail.
Okay, an attempt at a spoiler-free response:
On one hand, the entire concept of the Sparrow program is incredibly exploitive to the women (and men!) who were enrolled in it. The film doesn’t shy away from showing exactly how the students are trained to be Sparrows.
On the other hand, the plot of the movie does NOT go in the direction you expect at the end. Dominika’s ultimate goals definitely break with spy-thriller tradition in a way that I found satisfying.
To put it a different way: I found the sex scenes incredibly uncomfortable, whereas my husband found the torture scenes incredibly uncomfortable.